04 Everything you need to know to get started with Email Marketing

In this episode of the Marketing Guide, you are going to learn why you need an email list,  the advantages of email marketing,  how to get subscribers when you don’t have a list yet, ways to get people to sign up to your list, what a lead magnet is and why you need one, what to send out to your list once you have one, email automation explained and which email platform you should choose. 

Take Note: Make sure you grab a pen and paper and get ready to take some notes because there is pure gold in this episode I promise.

Links mentioned in this episode

Canva: Easily create lead magnets for your business including checklists, ebooks and so much  more. Link: canva.com

Free ebook "Going Live on Instagram - a step-by-step guide" This is an example of a free lead magnet that I use for my business as mentioned in the episode. Download it here: https://lauraomahony.com/

Flodesk:  The email marketing platform that I 100% Recommend. You can save 50% off your monthly subscription (for life) and enjoy all of the great features for only $19 per month. Get a 30 Day free trial with no credit card needed https://flodesk.com/c/6SYNAZ (aff link)

Transcript

Everything you need to know to get started with Email Marketing

Hello and welcome to episode 4 of the marketing guide. Okay so if you have you ever wondered where to get started with email marketing, if it’s right for you and your business, what platforms to use, how to grow a list then today’s episode is for you.  A lot of people feel pure overwhelmed when it comes to email marketing and the truth is that it is really not that complicated. 

Today’s episode is brought to you by my free ebook: Going Live on Instagram a step-by-step guide. You can download on my website www.lauraomahony.com I’ll leave the link in the show notes.

Today you are going to learn why you need an email list,  the advantages of email marketing,  how to get subscribers when you don’t have a list yet, ways to get people to sign up to your list, what a lead magnet is and why you need one, what to send out to your list once you have one and lots more. Make sure you grab a pen and paper and get ready to take some notes because there is pure gold in this episode I promise. 

Why you need an email list

So imagine if in the morning you woke up and Facebook and Instagram had shut down? How would you fair out? Would you have a way to reach your followers or would they be completely lost? The truth about social media is that we do not own our followers. Mark Zukerberg does. However, if you have your followers on your mailing list you don’t have to panic in the event of a social media shutdown. 

Another reason that you need an email list it is way more personal. 

Email is a direct link between you and your customers or potential customer than social media. On social we are constantly competing for their attention wheres with email if they open it they are far more likely to read it (once the content is worthwhile that is) ! 

Next, consider that email is a lot more targeted than social media. If the person has signed up for your mailing list then the chances of them being interested in what you have to offer is so much higher than trying to reach an audience elsewhere online who may not be interested in what you have to offer or may not know who you are . You have a higher chance of converting someone from your email list then you do online in my experience. 

Another factor when considering why you need an email list is the building the KLT factor or KNOW, LIKE and TRUST. I’ve talked about this in previous episodes but if you are regularly emailing your list then they begin to know you, then like you then trust you and when it comes to selling online all 3 of these factors are key. 

Lastly, unlike social media advertising, email marketing is way more cost-effective and the return on investment is much higher than online advertising and other marketing spend.

The advantages of email

So what are the advantages of email? There are so many advantages to email marketing I really don’t know where to start. First of all, you can get really niche and personal with your content and create targeted emails for your audience. So for example, If I have a  resource on my website that people can download (I’m going to use a skincare brand for this example) and it’s a step-by-step guide to prepping my skin for my wedding then I know a lot of information about that person I know that they are a future bride, they are interested in skincare, that they are looking for more information on this topic so I can then tailor my content towards that person and tailor my offering so that I can easily turn them from a subscriber into a customer. 

Another really great advantage of email marketing is that is so easy to collect feedback from your audience. Say you are that skincare brand who is looking to expand your range and you want to get feedback from your consumers than it is so easy to email your customers and say can you tell us what you think of this product x and do you think it is something to you may buy in future if we introduce it. That way you know that the product is either highly desirable or they are not interested and you can rethink your range or make changes according to the feedback.  If you run an e-commerce based business asking for feedback or reviews is also another great way of increasing the Trust aspect of your business. Displaying reviews or feedback on your website lets potential customers know that you are dealing with real people and they have had a positive experience. Rember that most people check their emails every day wheres they may not check their social media every day. 

The next great advantage to email marketing is that it is a great traffic driver to your website.  Sometimes I come across a really great website and I love what they do and what they sell but then I get distracted and I totally forget about them. How many of us have done that before? If you have got them onto your mailing list before they leave your website (I’ll speak a bit about that later on and how to do this) then you can drive them back to your website and try to convert them. 

So how many times have you been shopping online, spend ages picking out the perfect outfit/products, get to the checkout stage only to get distracted then close out of the tab and completely forget about it? Yes, I have been guilty of this so many times. The honest truth is that something people need that little bit of a push to get the sale over the line. They may have got distracted, forgot about it, waiting till payday or there could be 101 reasons that they just didn’t buy at that time.  So if you have an online store here are your two options! One you could completely ignore the fact that you have abandoned checkouts and go on with life as normal and miss out on some of those potential sales or two do something about it. With the latter option a quick email to the customer saying: “Hey, you left this in your cart and we just wanted to remind you and here is the button to checkout” with the details of what they failed to checkout (you could even put in a sneakily little discount code to incentivise them even further). If you are using an e-commerce platform like Shopify this is super simple to set up and you can manage to reclaim a surprisingly amount of the abandoned carts. 

So another great advantage of email marketing is that you are able to provide so much value to your audience. This is one of the main pillars of my brand: to provide small business owners with marketing tips, strategies and hacks. I make sure that in every email I create, every social media post I make, every podcast episode I provide so much value. You can create such a deep connection with your audience by doing this and then you become known as the person to go to for x. (whatever your niche is) So by providing my audience with value posts around marketing they then know that I am the person to come to when they have a query in that area.  Your audience will become loyal fans and when you do put out your offering they are far more likely to buy from you. 

Here are some other advantages of email marketing:

1. It’s easy to track and measure how well an email performed
2. You can increase your brand awareness and create loyal fans of your brand
3. Email marketing content is highly sharable. It’s easy for people to forward your email and share your content with one click of a button.
4. It’s the perfect way to communicate with your customers during a launch, for an event or for a promotion.
5. Email is not hugely time-consuming. I send a weekly email and it takes me between 20-30 minutes to put it together and schedule it out.
6. Your brand will stay at the forefront of your subscribers’ minds if you are emailing them regularly.
7. You can use the content that you have created during the week say like this podcast episode, Instagram posts, TikTok videos and easily include them within your emails. 
8. It’s really easy to get started with email marketing and doesn’t require huge amounts of tech knowledge. 

How to get subscribers when you don’t have any

You can see there just from that one section that there are huge advantages and benefits to email marketing.  I hope I have you convinced after that.  How do you get subscribers than when you don’t currently have any?  

First, you can’t just ask people to sign up to your newsletter you have to give them a reason to want to sign up. Nowadays people are precious with their email address and are not just going to hand it over to anyone and for a newsletter that they know nothing about. There has to be an incentive for them to sign up and this is where your lead magnet comes in. 

what a lead magnet is and why you need one

I know what you are thinking. What on earth is a lead magnet and how on earth do I create one? It’s actually quite simple. A lead magnet is something that you give your audience in exchange for their email address. My lead magnet is the step-by-step guide to going live on Instagram ebook that I spoke about at the top of this episode. 

You could create a simple checklist, a video demo, a free 5-day challenge, a free masterclass, an ebook, a step-by-step guide, the possibilities are endless. Canva is a great resource for creating checklist, ebooks etc and there is a huge amount of templates available that you can simply edit with your information and you can download it as a pdf.  

This is my favourite method for getting subscribers onto my list because I know the exact topics that they are interested in and I can target my content for them. You may find it difficult to come up with an idea but my suggestion to you is don’t overcomplicate it even a simple checklist made up in Microsoft word converted to a pdf will do the same job. It’s doesn’t have to take you lots of time just create something that will provide value or help your audience in some way.

ways to get people to sign up to your list using your lead magnet

Here are some other ways to get people to sign up to your mailing list:

1. Include a link on your email signature
2. Create Pinterest graphics for your lead magnet
3. Put a link in your Instagram bio for your lead magnet
4. Change your cover photo on Facebook to a promo for your lead magnet
5. Post a story to your Instagram with a picture of the lead magnet and include a question box and ask followers if they are interested to comment “YES”. DM those who said yes and ask them to send you their email address and you can manually add them to your list.
6. Post an image of your lead magnet to your Instagram feed and speak of the benefits of the lead magnet and how it can help your audience.
7. Post a signup form within your blog posts on your website. 
8. Put it several places around your site, in blog posts, in the sidebar in the footer etc

what to send out to your list once you have one

You have now started to build your subscriber base with your lead magnet and you have people on your list. Here is the first mistake that most people make. They don’t nurture their list. Just like you care for and nurture a baby you have to do the same with your list. Don’t just let people subscribe then you fall off the face of the earth. Let them know what they can expect after they subscribe. Are you going to email them ever Monday or maybe every Monday and Friday? Set out a schedule (I recommend emailing regularly once a week and a bit more during busy times like launches, holidays) and stick to this religiously. Ensure that if you say you are going to email them every Friday that you follow through and actually do it. 

What do you send to your audience on the regular here are my best suggestions:

1. A round up of the previous week’s social media content including IGTV videos, Instagram Posts, TikTik Videos etc you get the idea
2. Podcast Episodes/YouTube Videos/
3. Blog Posts
4. Inspiration/Motavation story
5. Behind-the-Scenes within your business
6. Freebies/Discounts
7. Tips, Strategies, Hacks
8. Company News 
9. How-tos
10. Showcasing you and your team
11. Reviews/Feedback from customers
12. Before/After (Showing results)

Email Automation explained

What if I told you that you could set up your lead magnet have it delivered automatically whenever anyone signed up then two days later the subscriber automatically gets a welcome email then two days after that gets another mail with your exclusive offer for them and you only have to set this up once? This is known as automation. It’s important that when a subscriber comes onto your email list then are put into a sequence known as a welcome sequence. The first email will deliver the lead magnet (your pdf) then next email will give something of value like a blog post or tips and your last email is your offer. It’s important to create a highly appealing offer for your subscriber if you want to convert them to a customer that early on in the journey. If you are a service-based business you might encourage them to place a discovery call at this stage or book a one-on-one with you. 

I know what you are thinking automation sounds complicated and I am not sure that I would be able to create this. The truth is that it’s a lot easier than you think. 

Which platform you should use

Which brings me on to which platform should you choose when you are setting up your mailing list. There are so many that you can choose from like MailChimp, active campaign, constant contact, get response and so many more. A lot of these have free versions up to a certain level of subscriber and then the paid version kicks in. In my own business I used to use MailChimp for email marketing however I had several issues with it including it took me too long to create a mail, automation was difficult and I found that I was beyond frustrated and as a result I never regularly contact my mailing list. I then discovered Flodesk and everything changed. I found it so easy to use and since I started using it I have never missed sending a weekly email to my audience and I have also been able to sell my new products to my subscribers. The automation is so easy to set up (it’s known as workflows) and is pre-populated with all the text you need (you just have to change the links and images). This platform has literally changed the way I run my businesses. I love it so much. Another great feature is that If you don’t yet have a website you can create single landing pages that you can drive people to (this is within the forms tab) and still promote your lead magnet and still get people on your mailing list. So there is no excuse if you don’t have a website not to grow your list. 

This is a paid platform however you don’t pay by the number of subscribers you have like other platforms this is unlimited subscribers for a single amount. You can get a free 30-day trial no credit card needed and  I have a 50% off discount if you sign up through my link I’ll leave it in the shownotes below.  https://flodesk.com/c/6SYNAZ  I can honestly say it’s one of the best investments I have made so far in my business I cannot recommend it enough. 

Here is a Roundup of everything we learned today 

1. Why you need an email list
2. The advantages of an email list
3. How to get subscribers when you don’t have any
4. What is a lead magnet and why you need one
5. Ways to get people to sign up to your mailing list using your lead magnet
6. What to send out to your list once you start one
7. Email automation explained
8. Which platform you should use

So that is it for today’s episode I hope that you enjoyed the show and took lots of notes and that it will help you get started with email marketing.   I send a weekly email packed full of tips, strategies and hacks every week if you want to sign up simply visit my website or pop me a DM on Instagram. You can get take inspiration for your own email marketing too!

Thank you so much for listening Don’t forget to subscribe so don’t miss out on any future episodes and if you have 5 minutes today could you please go leave a review. This will mean the world to me and I will be reading out your reviews in future podcasts too so you might get a little mention if you go do that now.

I hope you have a great week and I will see you in the next episode!